To make matters worse, the Pacific Northwest has been socked in with wildfire smoke from Canada during this hot stretch, leading to poor air quality.

Relief from the torrid temperatures is finally on the way this weekend. An area of high pressure aloft will break down and give way to cooler weather that continues into next week.

3. Rare August Tornadoes in the Sooner State

Oklahoma has a tornadic reputation, but that's usually reserved for spring - not early August.

In the wee hours of Aug. 6, however, four tornadoes touched down in northeast Oklahoma. One was an EF2 that tore through southeastern Tulsa and injured 30 people while damaging nearly 200 homes and businesses.

For Oklahoma as a whole, August has averaged the fewest number of tornadoes of any non-winter month dating to 1950, with about one per year.

4. Flash Floods Strike Three Major Metros in Four Days

Significant flooding swamped three major metro areas in the South over the course of four days beginning this past Saturday.

Heavy thunderstorms first led to flash flooding in New Orleans late Saturday. Then, floodwaters from slow-moving thunderstorms inundated parts of the San Antonio and Houston areas Monday morning and Tuesday morning, respectively.

The culprit for the soaking storms in the South was deep, tropical moisture interacting with a stalled front and ripples of energy aloft. In this type of weather setup, thunderstorms can be very efficient rain producers, resulting in multiple inches of rain soaking one spot in an hour's time.

In the case of New Orleans, the National Weather Service said isolated locations saw 8 inches of rain in four hours on Saturday.